The honeymoon is currently over for President Trump|Richard Wolffe

Shocking poll numbers tell of a uniquely difficult track for the new commander-in-chief. And thats before the inevitable scandals start

Today marks the beginning of the end of Donald Trumps presidency.

It isnt wishful thinking to begin the countdown to Trumps self-destruction on his inauguration day. Its simply its declaration of the particular circumstances of presidential life: this is no longer a game played out on TV and Twitter.

Everything changes when The Apprentice star takes the oath of office on that stage outside the Capitol. Legally, politically and diplomatically, Trumps world is utterly transformed.

What passed before as media outrage now has a measurable impact on his presidential polls and by extension his presidential power.

What passed before as a sycophantic deliberation with his own attorney now opens the door to endless litigation and the clear and present danger of impeachment.

What passed before as a curious cozying up to Vladimir Putin is now transformed into a multi-agency investigation into illegal foreign payments to undermine the election.

We should not confuse populism with popularity. Trump enters the Oval Office as the weakest new commander-in-chief in living memory. Having lost the popular vote by almost 3 million, he has no political mandate to speak of. And his disastrous poll numbers are hard to overstate.

This is the high-water mark of every chairpeople acceptance ratings before they do the tough stuff of governing and encounter one of the many fast-moving crises that pass through the West Wing. At the height of his popularity, Donald Trump is polling as badly as George W Bush at the end of his fated presidency, after the catastrophic collapse of the economy and the bloody tragedy of the Iraq war.

A bumper crop of pre-inauguration polls tell the story of how deep unpopular the 45 th president is already. His personal popularity is as low as 32% is comparable to 61% favorability for President Obama.

Approval of his transition depicts him trailing Obama by an even greater margin: just 40% like the way Trump has performed since November, compared to 84% for Obamas transition eight years ago. Even George W Bush, elected after the extraordinary recount and legal coup in 2000, earned a 61% rating for his transition.

These arent trivial numbers. They are the white blood cells of the circulatory system that flows through Washington. Good poll numbers can inoculate a chairperson when Congress resists him. Bad numbers disclose a chairwoman vulnerable to outside assaults and embolden his many contenders both inside and outside his own party.

Those numbers are about to get a lot worse. In his first year in office, Obama lost more than 15 points on his task approving. If Trump follows the same way, he will be polling in the mid-2 0s by this time next year. To put that into context, Richard Nixons job approval on the working day he ceased the Oval Office was 24%.

The polls only reflect what people think of you, and they all rate you poorly both on a personal and professional basis. Heres whats rigged: an electoral you can win after losing the popular referendum by more than 2 points, as the polls correctly forecast.

What could drive Trumps poll numbers so low? Unlike Obama, who inherited the worst economy in two generations, the incoming chairman cannot blame external forces-out. The greater threat, both to his presidency and the republic, comes from Trump himself.

Somewhere near the upper part of the list is potential profiteer from the presidency through his continued ownership of the Trump Organization. It seems Trump will be in breach of the government lease on his new Washington hotel as soon as he is sworn into office today. His efforts to hold onto the lease which specifically prohibits government officials from holding it will uncover his true priorities in office.

According to his personal lawyer, Trump has drawn an ethical line by appointing his own ethics policeman inside his own company. This is a quaint arrangement favored by foxes guarding henhouses. The ethics of the Trump Organization are irrelevant; the ethics of the presidency, however, are governed by article one of the constitution, which proscribes gifts of different kinds from foreign powers.

Even under his own sham scheme, the new chairperson has already breached his so-called ethical standards. President-elect Trump first ordered that all pending deals be terminated, Trumps attorney Sheri Dillon told the press last week. The trust agreement as directed by President Trump enforces severe restrictions on new deals. No new foreign deals will be made whatsoever during the duration of President Trumps presidency.

This will come as news to the good people of Aberdeen who are about to witness the dramatic expansion of the Trump golf course in Scotland. That expansion, corroborated just this week, involves another 18 holes, a new 450 -room hotel, a timeshare complex and a private housing estate.

Trumps staff brush aside these niceties by saying the Scottish bargain is just a wafer-thin mint of an expansion of an existing deal.

Sadly the constitution doesnt distinguish between new and existing bargains when it strictly proscribes the president from describing any benefits from foreign powers. It just says they are all unconstitutional.

What kind of bargains might breach the now famous emoluments clause? As ProPublica has detailed, theres the Indian deal in Mumbai that involves the vice-president of the ruling BJP party, who is also an elected official. Theres a handled in Bali, Indonesia, with an Indonesian politician, who has partnered with state-owned companies from China and South Korea. And theres a deal in Manila with a man lately named as an economic envoy to the US by the murderous President Duterte of the Philippines.

You dont have to be a constitutional law professor to appreciate the legal and political jeopardy for Trump. President Clinton was impeached for lying under oath about sex, a supposedly high crime and misdemeanor that is not actually cited by the constitution. Unlike making money from foreign officials, which is.

Finally theres the noose thats tightening around Trumps alleged Russian relationships. You know, the ones the new chairman said IN ALL CAPS absolutely dont exist and never have , not ever, oh no.

The FBI and five other agencies are now investigating whether Russia covertly transferred cash to pay email hackers in the United States as part of a broader Kremlin plot to influence the presidential campaign in Trumps favor.

We also know that counter-intelligence officials are investigating possible contacts and ties between Trumps former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and Russian officials.

Almost every scandal get is comparable to Watergate, but very few genuinely deserve to be mentioned in the same breath. Of course, Watergate wasnt potentially financed by our mortal foes in Moscow, even if it did involve undermining a presidential election.

The last covert plot between a chairpeople inner circle and an adversary country was Reagans illegal gun-running operation to Iran. Perhaps thats what Trump means by stealing Reagans slogan about building America great again.

Now that hes the 45 th President of the United States, the rules of this game have officially changed. Donald Trump cannot trash tweet his way out his problems any more. The constitution does not provide for that particular escape pod from Air Force One.

The TV star is now the desperately flawed result in a tragicomedy, the author of his own misfortunes. If our bodies are our gardens, this president has unnaturally orange thumbs.